by Steve Benen | Jan 19, 2026 | Maddowblog, Politics
Around this time a decade ago, when Donald Trump’s 2016 candidacy inspired protests, the Republican assumed that the people involved couldn’t possibly be sincere in their dislike of him. Those who dared to heckle and demonstrate against him, he said at the time, were “paid agitators.”
In the years that followed, the president responded to practically every display of dissent the same way — with talk of “paid protesters,” “paid insurrectionists,” “professional agitators,” “paid troublemakers” and “paid agitators.”
The baseless claim, which he’s never even tried to substantiate, is rooted in an absurdity: Since Americans who disagree with Trump are effectively an impossibility, protests can only be explained through corrupt schemes and illicit payments. Those who agree with Republicans deserve to be seen as real, while Americans who disagree must necessarily be seen as inauthentic.
This misguided approach to dissent is quickly spreading within the president’s party. Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, a leading gubernatorial candidate in Florida, began this week asserting as fact that protesters in Minnesota “are paid to do this kind of mess.”
Rep. Byron Donalds: “These agitators — who by the way are paid, folks. America, they are paid to do this kind of mess.”— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-01-19T13:47:38.900Z
The congressman made no effort to substantiate the baseless claim, though he’s hardly alone. A day earlier, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem pushed the same line on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” blaming “funded protesters” for civil unrest in Minneapolis.
Last week, Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma was asked about possible scrutiny of the shooting death into Renee Good. “If they’re investigating anything, they need to be investigating the paid protesters,” the GOP senator replied.
by Steve Benen | Jan 19, 2026 | Maddowblog, Politics
After a decade of talking about unveiling a health care plan, Donald Trump said he was finally prepared to present the public with a meaningful and substantive proposal. On Thursday, the president followed through on that talk — or at least, it looked like he did for a brief and fleeting moment.
The White House touted a blueprint it described as “The Great Healthcare Plan” (the italics were in the original), which little more than a hodgepodge of conservative ideas, packaged together on a brief website, a bit shorter than the blog post you’re reading right now. It was accompanied by a prerecorded video, in which the president said, “I’m calling on Congress to pass this framework into law without delay, have to do it right now,” despite the fact that there’s nothing to pass.
There’s no bill or legislative text. There are no substantive details. There’s no timeline. The whole thing is only a small handful of paragraphs.
The White House told The Washington Post that it was a “broad architecture” — an apparent euphemism for “we couldn’t actually come up with anything more than vague goals” — and it’d be up to congressional Republicans to do the actual work.
Or put another way, those waiting for Trump to come up with a health care plan are still waiting.
The day after unveiling the faux “plan,” the president hosted an event at the White House about rural health care, and it stood to reason that he’d take the opportunity to tout the proposal he’d unveiled a day earlier. But he didn’t: Trump spoke with enthusiasm about the name of his pseudo “plan,” and he
by Steve Benen | Jan 19, 2026 | Maddowblog, Politics
The timeline of events isn’t exactly subtle. Two weeks ago, after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced that he was ending his bid for a third term, Donald Trump and his White House team said the end of the Democratic governor’s campaign wasn’t enough, and they wanted Walz to face a Justice Department investigation.
Less than a week later, The Wall Street Journal reported that the president had begun complaining privately about Attorney General Pam Bondi, “describing her as weak and an ineffective enforcer of his agenda,” at least in part because she hasn’t pursued his perceived political enemies as quickly as he’d prefer. The following day, the Journal published a follow-up report, adding that Trump also criticized some of his own U.S. attorneys at a White House event, “complaining they weren’t moving fast enough to prosecute his favored targets.”
Connecting the dots was rather straightforward: Team Trump wanted the Justice Department to go after Walz, and the president has been whining about the pace at which prosecutors were pursuing his domestic foes.
Take a wild guess what happened a few days after the Journal’s report reached the public. MS NOW reported:
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, according to two people familiar with the matter, a significant escalation of President Donald Trump’s campaign of retribution against his critics and a move that is almost certain to further inflame tensions with the state.
The investigation focuses on allegations of obstructing federal immigration enforcement amid protests throughout Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer last week.
The governor
by Paul Waldman | Jan 18, 2026 | Opinion, Politics
On Wednesday, President Trump shouted on Truth Social, “EFFECTIVE FEBRUARY FIRST, NO MORE PAYMENTS WILL BE MADE BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO STATES FOR THEIR CORRUPT CRIMINAL PROTECTION CENTERS KNOWN AS SANCTUARY CITIES.” What did he mean by “payments”? Highway funds, Medicare reimbursements to hospitals, education programs? No one seems to know, least of all Trump himself.
There is no precedent in modern times for this.
Trump can’t just shut off all federal funding to states he doesn’t like. But no one doubts he would if he could — or doubts he’s trying to. This is more than bloviation. Something important and dangerous is happening. The Trump administration is engaged in a comprehensive war, and its enemy is half of America. This war is being waged in rhetoric and regulation, budget cuts and violence. Its aim is to tear the country in two.
There is no precedent in modern times for this; one might make an analogy to Reconstruction in the wake of the Civil War, in which the federal government forced the South to accept democracy. But that was for the best of reasons, and Trump’s attempt to bend blue states to his will is for the worst.
We’re seeing the ugliest face of Trump’s plan in Minnesota. Minneapolis is under siege from roving gangs of masked federal thugs. Trump promised a “DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION” against the city and the state of Minnesota, and he is already delivering. Even before an ICE officer shot dead Renee Good, ill-trained and overly aggressive agents rampaged through the community, brutalizing people, lobbing tear gas into crowds and spreading an atmosphere of fear that has
by Steve Benen | Jan 17, 2026 | Maddowblog, Politics
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on Katie Miller’s podcast this week, and the host asked what kind of advice he’d give a new young mother about what to give a newborn. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, initially responded by acknowledging that he’s not a physician and doesn’t give out medical advice.
And if he’d stopped there, his comments would’ve been wholly unremarkable. The Cabinet secretary, however, did not stop there.
HHS Secretary RFK Jr: “This idea that you should trust the experts, a good mother doesn’t do that”— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) 2026-01-15T20:24:24.518768243Z
Kennedy Jr. went on to encourage new parents to “do their own research,” then quickly added, “This idea that you should trust the experts — a good mother doesn’t do that.”
The hapless secretary tried to bolster his point by arguing that families do their own research on consumer products all the time (he twice referenced the magazine Consumer Reports by name) and suggested that such poking around is no different from going online to look up information on vaccinations.
This comes months after RFK Jr. appeared on a different podcast, where he also said, “We need to stop trusting the experts.”
It’s worth unpacking this, if for no other reason than to help those who might’ve heard Kennedy Jr.’s comments and now find themselves unsure of what to think.
Right off the bat, it was odd to hear the secretary condemn expertise while simultaneously touting Consumer Reports, which hires experts in product analysis and consumer safety. In other words, Kennedy Jr. was telling the podcast’s audience that a “good mother” doesn’t trust experts, then implied she can turn instead to product reviews
by Steve Benen | Jan 16, 2026 | Maddowblog, Politics
As this week got underway, Donald Trump mocked Greenland’s national security measures, telling reporters, “Greenland, basically, their defense is two dogsleds. Do you know that? You know what their defense is? Two dogsleds.”
The president’s claim was, of course, utterly absurd — not to mention the fact that, as he ought to know, the United States already has a military base on the arctic island, which has more than just a couple of sleds.
Nevertheless, just days after Trump made the unfortunate comment, the military resources on Greenland are now quite a bit more robust than they were. NBC News reported:
European troops were arriving in Greenland on Thursday in a show of support, as leaders scrambling to respond to President Donald Trump’s threats were thrown another American curveball.
Trump pushed ahead with his aim of ‘conquering’ one European territory, Denmark’s top diplomat said after a high-stakes meeting in Washington on Wednesday.
While the size of the deployment is modest, it includes military personnel from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Sweden — all traditional allies of the United States — and French President Emmanuel Macron said his country would send additional “land, air and sea assets” in the coming days.
NBC News’ report added that Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen also said this week that the intention was “to establish a more permanent military presence with a larger Danish contribution,” as soldiers from several NATO countries are expected to be in Greenland on a rotating basis, according to Danish broadcaster DR.
Two weeks ago, deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller told CNN, “Nobody’s going to fight the United States
